" Harry, call me 'Old Girl' again and I'll spit in your eye."
Sarah Jane Smith, Doctor Who, Ark in Space
I have always maintained the importance of aunts.
Jane Austen
The best aunts aren't substitute parents, they're co-conspirators
Daryl Gregory
Title is excerpted from Dave Isay, "Aunts are to be a pattern and example to all aunts; to be a delight to boys (and girls) …" Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project
Reposted from AO3.
Rating: General Audiences
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: Multi Fandoms: Star Wars - All Media Types Star Wars Original Trilogy
Characters: Beru Whitesun; Leia Organa; Luke Skywalker; Han Solo; Chewbacca (Star Wars)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence; Family; Beru Whitesun Lives
It had been so much easier when Shmi was alive. Beru wiped the sweat dripping in her eyes with her elbow and kept at it, carefully adjusting the bars and waves on her data reader, trying to find and match the frequency.
"Thank you for your patience," she whispered to the little girl patiently sitting at the rickety kitchen table. She was nine, maybe, or ten, but Mos Espa slaves were malnourished and small for their age, so she might be older.
The girl looked up at her hovering father. "If Beru can't fix it, you should go without me, Pa."
"Hush, Sula," Ketil replied. "We have hours yet before we're missed. We have plenty of time. We're not leaving you behind."
Beru heard the unspoken, "Are we?" It was a reasonable question. It had taken only minutes for her to find, match, and block the frequency of Ketil's slave transmitter. Sula's was harder, more delicate, and far more complicated. It was usually the way of it. The younger the slaves were, the more valuable, and the more difficult to free.
"See?" Beru showed Sula and Kletis the fluctuating bars on her reader, more green than red or orange. "I'm getting there."
She shifted in the hard little seat and bent again over her reader to chase down the signal coming from Sula's slave transmitter and muzzle it.
Shmi had invented and then perfected the tech. A transmitter implanted in every slave could be triggered remotely and would automatically detonate if too far from its controller. It was too hard, especially in the middle of an escape, to find and remove the implants that were always deeply embedded in vital parts of the slave's body - typically near the heart, brain, or lungs.
Watto had deactivated Shmi's transmitter once Cleigg had purchased her. Shmi had it surgically removed and spent years studying and reverse engineering it. Shmi found out how to program a second receiver to block the transmitter from hearing and responding to the detonation signals. They had to work fast, find, match, and block the signal, get the slave away as quickly as impossible, and then surgically remove the implant once they were safely out of range.
There was a doctor in Anchorhead waiting for Kletis - and Sula - Beru sternly reminded herself.
The door of the family's quarters rattled as the wind outside churned. Her speeder was in a garage around the corner from Kletis and Sula's grim little home. It would be a long, cold, blustery ride back across the plateau. For Keltis - and Sula - it would be glorious.
She and Shmi had freed scores of slaves from settlements all around the Northern Dune Sea. "No one notices old women," Shmi had said. So Beru would gray her hair and shuffle into slave quarters in the towns, do the reconnaissance, identify the people, and make the contacts. Shmi would handle the delicate work of programming the blocker. Beru handled the escape, driving them all across the desert through the night and navigating around the Tuskens, Jawas, sinks, and sand traps of the desert.
And then Shmi died. Beru had tried to carry on without her, but far slower and less efficiently. And then the account with the Naboo money that had funded their operation never refilled. Her time dried up too, with Luke running about the farm and old enough to get into everything - including the secret room beneath the garage where she hid the equipment, the speeder and, occasionally, rescued slaves.
When she had complained to Breha Organa about her frustration with the abandoned effort, the Queen exhorted her to pick it up again, for the sake of their children's father and grandmother. Breha provided steady funding and sponsored the backend of what had grown into a small but efficient underground operation. If Beru could get the slaves to Anchorhead, Breha arranged for new identities and paid for the transportation to and resettlement on Alderaan.
These days, there was no need for the disguise. Her gray hair was all natural and the harsh climate had aged her skin nicely. She'd been smuggling slaves off of Tatooine for nearly twenty years now and it was as true as when she'd been barely out of her teens and pretending to be much older - no one ever noticed middle aged and gray haired women.
"The frequency is higher than usual," she murmured, seeing the waves get shorter and shorter. "And yours is set at a very narrow range."
"You always were special, Sula," Kletis said.
"Your jokes never are, Pa. Don't embarrass me."
Based on that reply and Beru's own experience with Luke in his boisterous adolescence, Sula was surely older than ten.
Beru gritted her teeth. I can do this.
She played with the bars like a musician on a synth-harmonium. Kletis shifted uncomfortably as the bars turned worrying orange and red. But Sula's calm buoyed her and Beru slowly tamed each one and the angry colors gradually muted, first to orange, yellow, and then to green.
The reader vibrated with a satisfying hum and everything slotted into place like the pieces in a puzzle cube. The bars all read green and solid.
Sula jumped up and hugged her. "I knew you could do it, Beru!"
Beru shoved her reader and the secondary receivers into her bag. She - and the receivers specifically - had to stay within a half a meter of Kletis and Sula to keep their embedded trackers from exploding.
Kletis pulled his goggles down over his eyes and opened the door. Cold night desert air and biting sand swirled in. A long, dark ride across the Dune Sea was next. And smuggling into Anchorhead. Illegal surgery. Secret transport to Alderaan and the start of a brand new life in a brand new place. But after a lifetime of slavery, the hardest part was over.
Even before the medal ceremony, teams were packing up everything from the Yavin operation and transports, as soon as they were filled, lifted off. Beru knew she could have helped - organizing, packing, and fitting smaller things efficiently into larger things were the sorts of skills middle-aged ladies excelled at. No one asked, though it wasn't because they were impolite. The Rebels were just not very good at organization. They needed someone in charge of moving and logistics. A woman. Someone who played a lot of puzzle games.
She had no idea where they were evacuating to, either. After Tatooine, it was nice to be in a damp place but Beru suspected mold would be a problem and the insects were astonishingly large and were very fond of her blood. She just hoped they weren't going somewhere really cold next. She didn't think she would like freezing temperatures and snow and didn't have the clothes for it - or much of anything in the way of personal belongings, really. She'd been in the garage when the stormtroopers had arrived on the farm.
She had made it to the hideaway. Owen hadn't. Luke had found her, still locked in and too terrified to come out. She and Luke had quickly buried what was left of Owen's remains and fled before anyone came back looking for stragglers.
The medal ceremony was very nice, even if they had to stand for the whole thing. She supposed the chairs were already packed. With the evacuation in process, at least the speeches were short. Using her gray hair and complaining quietly as if her feet hurt and eyesight was poor got her an excellent view, both of the front of the assembly and the aisle as Luke, Captain Solo, and Chewbacca marched by. Luke had never looked so well and she was very proud of him. She wondered where he had gotten that nice jacket. Maybe he'd borrowed it from Captain Solo.
A man named Dodonna seemed to have some authority and was speaking. Beru hadn't met him yet and an introduction as the aunt of the young man who had saved them all hadn't been a priority. Dodonna asked for a moment of silence for all those lost in the attack on the Death Star and Alderaan. The grief and mourning, Dodonna said, would have to come later, after the evacuation. Beru didn't disagree, but she also thought that grief delayed would mean grief ignored and buried, and, in her ample experience, that wasn't good for people.
I need to grieve for Owen.
Proving herself the hypocrite, she promised, Later.
Needs must, as Shmi used to say.
Watching the ceremony confirmed what she'd suspected and that there was something that really needed doing.
Now. Yesterday. Before another hour passed.
Once the medals were awarded and everyone applauded, there was a crush of people at the front of the dais wanting to congratulate Luke, Captain Solo, and Leia. She really didn't have time for all this fawning nonsense. She ended up standing next to Chewbacca, who looked bored, if she could read the Wookiee's expressions. She didn't understand his language but knew he understood her. "You should have gotten a medal, too," she whispered to him.
Chewbacca wuffed something that might have been a laugh, or profound disagreement.
"I really have to talk to Luke and Leia before we evacuate. Can you help me get rid of this crowd?"
The sound he made was definitely a laugh. It was followed by a terrifying roar that made the people around them jump and skitter away like nervous Tatoo rats.
"Thank you, Chewbacca," she whispered, and followed him as he elbowed forward, pushing the stragglers away. "If I can bake something for you, please let me know."
"Keep your fur on! We're going soon enough!" Captain Solo snapped. He turned to Luke and Leia, and, with a sweeping gesture Beru really appreciated, included her as well. "Anyone need a lift?"
She was proud, and a little sad, when Luke shook his head. "I'm assigned to the Rogues." He looked awkward and added, "What's left of them."
Luke had lost Biggs, too.
"I'm in one of the command ships, I think," Leia said. "But I need to speak to Dodoona about finding survivors…"
The Alderaani remnant. That was something she'd want to help Leia with. Beru wondered if any of the former slaves she'd rescued over the last 25 years had been off planet and if she could ever find them.
But for the time being, she probably needed a ride, too. "I"d like to, Captain Solo. At least to the next rendezvous." She'd hopefully find a place in this ragtag operation, somewhere.
But first…
"If you'll excuse me, might I have a moment?" She had raised her voice and Luke and Leia, both well-trained to that particular tone, snapped their heads about to look at her. They knew when a woman's politely phrased request was an urgent demand.
Leia's questioning look was as clear as Luke's "Aunt Beru?" even though she had not spoken.
"Before we do anything else, I need to speak to both of you." She gestured to Luke and Leia and added the Voice again. "Now. Captain, Chewbacca, please excuse us. This shouldn't be long."
She wedged herself between Luke and Leia, took each by the elbow, and marched them back behind the dais to a busy corridor and some offices she'd sussed out earlier.
"Why do I feel like I'm about to be grounded," Luke muttered and Leia laughed. "Me too."
There were still some people moving equipment out of the office but Beru was able to clear the room with the same polite, firm, "If you would excuse us, please, for a moment?"
It probably helped that she had The Hero of the Assault On The Death Star and The Princess with her. But in her experience, women with wrinkles and gray hair were only invisible until they used good posture and an authoritative way of speaking. That combination could often achieve immediate and unthinking compliance from others, particularly adult men and young people who would obey out of habit until their rational processes kicked in and they started questioning orders.
Luke and Leia's resistance to authority was well-honed, so she had to act fast.
The room was cluttered with piles of what looked to be broken machine parts, office furniture, and some cabinets of flimsies that probably shouldn't be left behind. No chairs here, either, but that was just as well. Under the circumstances, standing was probably best.
"Thank you for indulging me," she told Luke and Leia. She felt her throat tighten and turned to shut the door. They were both so handsome and so young. They had lost so much.
She pivoted back to face them. "I know that we have to evacuate but I really needed to …"
The door burst open and hit her in the backside. She whirled around. "This is a private meeting!"
Whoever it was stuck her head in, muttered "Sorry," and closed the door. Beru backed up so she could at least partially block the door from opening again with another interruption.
"As I was saying, I know it's urgent we bug out of here but, Leia, allow me to say, again, how deeply sorry I am for your losses."
Leia raised her chin and her lip trembled a little before she responded in a steady voice, "Thank you. I understand from Luke that you lost your husband."
Beru felt the door open again and she shoved it closed with her foot. There was a muttered "ouch" on the other side.
"My deepest condolences," Leia continued, with practiced, but genuine, sincerity. "If there is anything that…"
There was a knock on the door and all three of them bellowed, "Later!"
This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Breha and Bail should have been here. This was Ben's fault. It should have never gone on this long.
She muttered a particularly colorful curse under her breath that made Luke grin. He knew who had been responsible for the most creative profanity in their home.
The gods save us from men and their unrelenting stubbornness.
"What I wanted to say," Beru began again, "I knew your parents, Leia, and they were wonderful people and please know that I grieve with you for their loss."
Luke and Leia both stared at her; Luke managed to express his shock first. "You knew the Queen of Alderaan? The Viceroy?"
"Breha and I had been in communication since you were born." Beru found her nerve was faltering and the smooth words of comfort she had planned flitted away. Sounds of transports lifting off all around them were shaking the walls and they had to raise their voices. This was madness. But it had to be done. "Breha, Bail, and I knew this could happen. Not this horribly, or suddenly, but we planned for contingencies."
"But, why?" Leia asked first.
Luke was right behind her. "What about?"
Deep breath. Be sympathetic? Happy? Apologetic?
Factual, she decided on.
"You both were raised knowing you were loved, but thinking you were alone. This was a lie to protect you both that many participated in, myself included. I'm sorry about that but it was necessary at the time. Now, though, I think, the truth is more important. You both are old enough, have shown you're old enough, to make your own decisions about how to protect yourselves."
Beru paused. Luke was staring at her. Leia was staring at Luke.
Leia sees it already. Ben had said Leia was as strong in the Force as Luke was.
"We're…" Leia stammered and stuttered to a stop.
Beru nodded. "Yes."
"What?" Luke demanded.
"You and Leia are brother and sister, twins, actually. You were separated at birth to hide you from the Emperor."
Beru could see Luke's infatuation, barely begun, sputter and die. Something else, though, stronger and more real rose in its place and he put a gentle arm around Leia's slim, shaking shoulders. Leia stiffened, at first, and then sank against him.
Leia sniffed. "Are you my… aunt? My real aunt?"
"Your family was all real, Leia," Beru replied. "But yes, I am your aunt, by marriage."
"On our father's side," Luke put in quietly. Beru could see he was pleased in a small way to be able share knowledge with Leia - his sister - who surely seemed so much more galactic and privileged to him. "My grandmother, our grandmother, Shmi Skywalker, married Cliegg Lars, who was Uncle Owen's father."
Luke looked at her with questions and some, wholly deserved, accusation. "You always said that our father, Ani Skywalker, was a freighter pilot, but Ben said he was a Jedi Knight..."
"It was all part of the lie. Your father was a famous Jedi Knight and a General in the Clone Wars, Anakin Skywalker. Your mother was Padmé Nabierre."
Leia's eyes widened. "My mother told me about her! We had a statue in her memory at the Palace. She was a Senator! From Naboo!"
Beru nodded. "Yes. Breha wanted to be sure you knew about her growing up. Your father's message, to bring Ben Kenobi to Alderaan, was also the summons for Luke. You were going to… they were going to tell you…"
There was pounding at the door again and before they could all shout, "Go away!" a klaxon sounded.
Beru stepped forward and pulled them both into a tight embrace. "I know very little of the story but what I do know, I'll tell you. No more secrets."
Leia began weeping more openly and Beru pulled a clean wipe from her pocket and dabbed away the tears.
"You both have lost so much but now at least you know you have each other."
"And you," Luke said, pulling her tighter. "We have you, too, Aunt Beru."
Time moved differently when you were in space. There were no days, no nights, just shifts. Beru had first traveled with Captain Solo but then, after a few days, had moved to one of the ships Leia was on, and Luke when he wasn't on patrol in his X-Wing. She still had nothing to do and it was beginning to chafe. She realized she belonged on a planet, in real gravity, with real dirt or duracrete under her feet.
She was in the crew mess, wishing for a proper cup of hot caff, and desperately wanting to complain to someone about how awful it was. Instead, she sighed and stirred the weak soup that purported to be caff. Tatooine caff had been an acquired taste - very strong, very sweet, and something she very much missed, along with the heat that accompanied it. Space was cold and she'd heard their next base was going to be on a frozen planet inhabited by snow monsters. She wasn't looking forward to the change. The location was supposed to be a secret but people would tell a middle aged woman anything.
Why didn't the Rebels have bases in places that were more temperate?
She knew the answer. It just made her cranky.
Luke and Leia entered the mess and hurried toward her. They were not quite arm in arm but definitely together and of a single mind. In the past few days, they had spent enough time together that they were mirroring one another, completing one another's sentences, and bickering constantly. She laughed when she heard the rumors of a romance. This was sibling affection and rivalry, much of which was directed at Captain Solo who both Luke and Leia were infatuated with.
"What?" She was feeling sour over the obvious smugness quivering from her niece and nephew.
Leia plucked her caff cup from hands and set it on the badly chipped table. "There's better drink where we're taking you."
Luke and Leia, in undoubted revenge, seized her by the elbows and propelled her down a long passageway, toward the forward deck.
"What's going on?" she demanded.
"A surprise," Luke said.
"That's rude, Luke," Leia countered.
"So where are you taking me?"
"It's a surprise," Leia replied.
"I'll ground both of you!" Beru muttered.
Once they arrived at the fore deck, though, Luke and Leia both became more restrained and let her walk into a small, bland office with dignity and no grabbing onto her arms or pushing her.
Luke gestured politely and Leia went in first, then stood to the side. "Beru, I would like to introduce you to General Airen Cracken. Head of Security and Intelligence."
Well this was unexpected. General Cracken looked to be about her own age, maybe a little younger. She inclined her head. "General. It's a pleasure to meet you."
He was scrolling through a data reader and, from the reflection, Beru saw her own biography was on it.
The General looked up and studied her. He was gray with fatigue and she could see the stress in the tense way he held his neck and head. Things weren't going well. They'd lost a lot of people, both on Scarif and at Yavin.
So why am I here?
Oh.
He's recruiting.
"Beru Whitesun Lars." It wasn't really a question, so there wasn't really anything to say in response. "I understand from Luke that you were operating a smuggling ring on Tatooine? In Hutt-controlled territory?"
She frowned at Luke. "My nephew is exaggerating."
"I am not!" Luke countered. He'd be more credible if his voice hadn't cracked. "You had the secret room in the garage with all that equipment and…"
"It wasn't smuggling," Beru interrupted. To the General she said, "I was the first part of an anti-slaving network. I had tech that temporarily blocked slavers from triggering the trackers embedded in the people they owned. I got the slaves to Anchorhead where we removed the implants and then Breha Organa got them off Tatooine." She paused. "And yes, most of the slaves were owed by the Hutts, so that part is true."
The General looked thoughtful and tapped a finger to his lips. "So that was you. We have a large number of former Tatooine slaves in the Alliance that came to us through Alderaan."
Something warm and pleased filled her. She smiled. "I'd hoped that would be the case."
"Luke had made it sound as if you were an experienced smuggler, but what you describe is even more desirable, if you're amenable."
Beru glared at her nephew. "What have you volunteered me for?"
Luke pointed at Leia, shook his head and mouthed, "It's not my fault."
"We're trying to rebuild our intelligence networks, Beru," Leia said. "When General Cracken mentioned needing those with clean backgrounds who could pass Imperial scrutiny and had no known Rebellion ties, I thought of you." Leia's voice turned softer. "I didn't know you'd worked with my mother, too."
Beru nodded and regretted she'd mentioned Breha. They could talk later, when Leia wasn't with a commanding officer. Leia was always trying to portray a steel resolve and didn't want to betray the slightest emotion to anyone; it was costing her dearly to maintain the mask. Beru turned back to the General to deflect attention from her niece.
"Well, General, it's well known that middle aged women can go anywhere and no one ever notices us. And people always expect us to ask nosy questions and will tell us anything. What did you have in mind? If you can look beyond my gray hair, others will as well."
His mouth quirked up in a slight smile. "Thank you for saying what I was thinking but thought too impolite to mention."
He waved a hand and a star map popped up between them. "We want to establish a presence in the Bothan sector. The Bothans have a very mature network and having someone in place on Bothawui, in the capital region, would be strategically useful. You wouldn't need a cover - just a plausible reason for setting up shop, which you already have. I think an actual, physical location for you makes sense, if you wish, a tapcaff, or a repair business, or a small market. It would likely be a long-term assignment to initiate relationships with the Bothan spy network and establish an intelligence-sharing arrangement with them."
Beru stared at the map at the equatorial region highlighted in vibrant greens. "I've never been to Bothawui. Is it warmer than where we're going?"
General Cracken frowned and looked at Luke and Leia. "The location of our base is still classified."
Her niece and nephew emphatically shook their heads.
"I didn't tell her," Leia said promptly.
"It wasn't me!" Luke protested. "She's an aunt. She just always knows things!"